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Comment by throwayEngineer | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure the people you intend to help with this idea, don't care.

We already have diet soda, yet people choose full sugar.

Edit, the downvotes + comments in reply really tell the story. People don't care if things are unhealthy, if it tastes good, they do it. This exactly reflects the original comment, even if people don't want to hear it.

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I have a soda maybe once a month, but I never drink diet soda because I think it tastes very bad compared to non-diet. Every variety of Coke that is not regular Coke leaves a weird aftertaste in my mouth (you know, distinct from the weird aftertaste of consuming a ridiculous amount of sugar).

I will also say that seeing the quantity of sugar in things represented as a pile was definitely a motivator for me to basically stop drinking soda, so there are people out there for whom it matters. At least one, anyway!

I must strongly disagree with this. Diet Coke has a very aspartame-y taste but Coke Zero is incredibly close to original Coke with 0 sugar. The trade-off of Coke Zero vs. regular Coke to me seems like a no-brainer!

I assume there's a very strong element of personal taste here. I agree that Coke Zero is way, way better than Diet Coke, but it's still weird compared to regular Coke, to my taste anyway. I'd rather not drink soda than drink Coke Zero. I also don't have a giant attachment to drinking soda, so when I do it, I want to optimize for enjoyment.

I drink Diet Coke exclusively (as far as sodas) and (because it's what I'm used to, likely), I feel about Coke the same way you feel about Diet Code. It takes weird to me.

I can't stand Coke Zero myself, better maybe, but still very weird aftertaste. I like those V8 Vanilla Raspberry energy drinks and I thought they were made with real sugar, until I added a can of it to a smoothie with real fruit.

"Strange, my smoothie tastes like it has artificial sugar now" I thought, come to find out they're made with Splenda and I couldn't tell before that.

Personal taste. I love diet coke but don't like coke zero.

Diet sodas aren't better for your health though, in fact they may be worse.

Citation needed

Like most of the comments on this thread.

> Diet sodas aren't better for your health though, in fact they may be worse.

"May be worse" is hard to argue when one has direct, obvious negative effects and the other has a series of much more weakly linked possible results.

Here's a journal article that removes that "may" https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/95/4/909/4576821

I don't see a comparison of that to full sugar drinkers.

I dont know about that. I think having a visual representation of the sugar contents could work quite well especially for people who don't tend to read labels.

I drink soda only two or three times a year. The few times I’ve accidentally had diet soda it was personally unappetizing: it had a strong metallic after-taste... I’m told people get used to it. But why spend the time getting used to it when I can enjoy a Mexican Coca Cola with real sugar?

I suddenly got type 1 diabetes and did indeed find that diet cola started tasting a lot more “normal” pretty quickly, while I had hated it before. Still, if you don’t have the same health issues, I’m not sure if there’s a reason to switch. It seems either one should be had in moderation.

Real sugar? Do you mean Cane Sugar? It's chemically identical to beet sugar. You have been duped. I know this because I work with sugar companies.

Coke in the US is made with high fructose corn syrup. That’s why Mexican coke is often imported: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Coke

Which is still fructose and glucose. In the article you linked Mexican Coke has similar levels of both of those so it's chemically nearly identical...

People can tell the difference in blind taste tests: https://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/09/the-food-lab-drinks-e... (though in this case, most of the Americans preferred American coke)

yeah, but the stuff with sugar tastes better.

people should be encouraged to enjoy soda with real (cane) sugar sparingly, not just switch to slamming diet soda all day instead.

I thought the diet stuff was supposed to be bad for health? I can't keep up...

It's almost certainly not good for you, but it's also almost certainly better for you than the full-sugar version.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/95/4/909/4576821

Suggests otherwise, diet soda results in obesity and diabetes at a rate approaching 2:1 when compared to regular.

It turns out that trying to fool our systems with "reduced fat" and "reduced sugar" results in our bodies not being fooled.

Diet soda is much worse than regular. It causes more weight gain than sugar, has crazy drug interactions, and some people have adverse health reactions to some of the sweeteners (which are not always prominently labeled).

> has crazy drug interactions, and some people have adverse health reactions to some of the sweeteners (which are not always prominently labeled).

I haven't heard anything about this. Do you have a source? The second item strikes me as the same health reactions non-celiac "gluten sensitives" get.

I have an adverse reaction to sorbitol that causes me quite nasty upset stomachs. It's a fairly well known effect from that particular sweetener and is fairly easy to avoid, though.

and for some evidence: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/sorbitol-side-effects.html

This has been debunked. It’s not that diet soda “causes” weight gain, the studies show that people eat more because they think drinking diet soda gives them a license to do so.

The old I am going to order a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, and a Diet Coke.

https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/2014/06/do-diet-sodas-cau...

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/diet-soda-weight-gain-metab...

> We already have diet soda, yet people choose full sugar.

We already have science that shows diet sodas increase diabetes and obesity almost 2 for 1 (through calorie) craving and are in many ways worse (calcium malabsorption) than high fructose corn syrup.

Then we have you ignoring the science, and saying just choose diet soda.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/95/4/909/4576821

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not see any conclusion in that study that diet drinks are worse than non-diet drinks regarding metabolic syndrome (only that diet drinks might also be bad to some degree).

A study analysing 36000 deaths and 3 million person-years (published by the American Heart Association) found a 21% increase in all cause mortality among those consuming 2 or more sugar sweetened beverages per day. Consuming 2 or more artificially sweetened beverages, on the other hand, was associated with only a 4% increase. And moderate consumtion of artificially sweetened beverages (< 2 per day) was actually, unlike sugar, associated with decreased mortality. [1]

[1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....

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